Wicked Thing
by plutospawn
Summary: An exploration of Nema Surana's relationship with Alistair before it fell apart.


Since the day Nema Surana was admitted into the Tower of Magi, she had been told she was beautiful. Ethereal, preternatural. Or hot, sodding sex to some delinquent apprentices who would better serve the world with their tongues clipped. She didn't dwell on it until she grew older.

When she first met him, her initial impression was to slap him across the face. But her curt, "Yes, I am" to his, "Don't tell me you're another mage" set him spluttering desperately to unbury himself. Alistair was truly as guileless and simple as he appeared, but it was only after Nema had kept him at an arm's length all throughout Ostagar, that she actually started to believe it. That he was unable to keep his opinions to himself no matter how naive, that he always did what he said he would, that he so painfully tried to be good, moral and just. He was the first human outside of the Tower's walls she trusted. The only one she loved. The one she used, broke, destroyed.

At first, she'd regarded him as an experiment. He was so genuine in his relief when she'd woken up in Flemeth's hut it had taken her aback. Not like the nobles who'd raped her mother and taken her father at the Alienage, not like the Templars who regarded her with fear and distrust or even the other mages who'd always seemed so possessed by their studies, by power. Nema convinced herself that there had to be some sort of hidden agenda that Alistair needed her abilities for and she was determined to prove it.

So when Alistair said red, she said blue, when he said up, she said down, when he said lamb, she said rabbit. Morrigan always took her side; the witch of the wilds seemed particularly excited by this petulant game. Still, no agenda ever emerged.

It never occurred to Nema that Alistair could have been relieved by the knowledge that he wasn't alone.

When she was ready to grudgingly admit that Alistair did, indeed, continually treat her as an individual, he was already eyeing her with the same suspicion that he had previously reserved for Morrigan. They had accepted Leliana into their little group by that time and Nema was beginning to feel outnumbered. Consequently, she may have allowed Zevran to live when he attacked them much later more on account of that fact alone rather than it being a sound idea.

So Nema marched, straight-backed up to Alistair who was lounging by the cooking fire with Leliana. The bard was humming softly, the glow of the fire giving her the solemn radiance of a priestess while Alistair kept applying twigs to the fire, kept pushing around coals, anything that would keep him from looking up at Nema. Nema, for her part, stood silently with her arms crossed until he could ignore her no further.

"Yes?" he said as he exchanged a raised eyebrow with Leliana.

"I was wrong about you," was all that Nema would say.

That was all it took to ignite the massive argument they performed shamelessly in front of their traveling companions. She never did understand what had offended Alistair so much by that statement. It was true; she had been wrong. But she had thought that realizing that was a good thing. That she'd no longer treat him with suspicion and disdain. Perhaps Alistair was upset that she didn't immediately open herself up to him, bubbling over with a naive trust. Perhaps he had grown accustomed to the elven scullery maids at Arl Eamon's castle who would lie on their backs and say, "Insert your humiliation here, but please don't harm my children."

Well, he certainly wasn't going to receive a formal apology over her cautious misgivings; he would have better luck requesting the moon.

After that, their relationship devolved to one of necessity. For every question, there would be a one word answer, and they kept themselves neatly separated in camp, with a barrier of bards, dogs and assassins. It took her jumping in front of an arrow meant for his back for them both to allow themselves to talk to one another again with their pride remaining intact.

"I have a shield, you know," were his first words when she woke in camp. "I find it works quite nicely to deflect arrows."

Nema jolted upright on her bedroll and immediately regretted it. Her torso naked, save for thick layers of bandages soaked with now-dried blood, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed the wooziness to go away. All the adrenaline was sapped from her body in an instant. Funny, considering her last memory before that was of staring at an arrow that stood erect in her chest. Her thoughts had been about how she misjudged the durability of her armor and amazement at how little it hurt. Then absolute nothing. Not falling to the ground, not the end of the battle, not Alistair's obscenities, not being carried back to camp, not a mabari whimpering at her feet while a bard, an apostate, a qunari warrior and a former Templar-in-training attempted to pool their medical expertise. The soothing blackness that sang through Nema's mind was far more appealing than being half-naked and exposed, doubled over on a bedroll as she tried not to vomit all over Alistair.

Alistair, for his part, handled it professionally. He braced her body with his arms and directed her head toward a rusted bucket that she graciously filled.

"Easy, there." His hands were warm, solid weights on her shoulders. "Do you feel better?"

"No."

"You've had a rough rough time of the past few days," he said.

Nema wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "We won the battle, I take?"

Alistair nodded. "Now that you're awake, we'll be able to reach Lake Calenhad in another three days."

"How much time have we wasted so far?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know." His mouth twisted. "Certainly more time than if we had to, say, bury you. Do you know how close that arrow head came to grazing your heart?"

"I suppose I should consider myself lucky, then," Nema said. She glanced down at her pillow. Her body ached and the bedroll was all too inviting.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful," Alistair continued. "But... why? I don't get it."

She frowned as she settled back down into the bedroll. "Why?"

"It could be me injured instead of you," he said. "Why did you do what you did? For me?"

"Because..." Because against all odds, he had turned out to be a sincere, worthwhile human being. Because he still continued to fight at her side even though he didn't like her, because it was the right thing to do. Because she had been a horrible, horrible bitch. "Because no man as handsome as you should have an arrow sticking out of him."

With that, Nema rolled over and fell back to sleep. And in the days following that, Alistair behaved more amicably. Strange, how when she didn't try at all, he responded so well and when she worked so hard and sacrificed everything for the greater good, that was when he would get upset.

She learned quickly not to tell him everything. She loved him for what he was, so pure and idealistic. So good that he would hate her for doing what was necessary. Nema kept quiet about her pact with the Fade demon and soaked up the accolades that Alistair lauded her with over saving both Connor and Isolde. He approved as she condemned Jowan for practicing the very arts she had just negotiated for. He'd seemed pleased when he learned that her studies had kept her so occupied that while inside the Tower's walls, she had never known a man's touch, but then again, he probably hadn't anticipated her remedying that with Zevran.

Nema told herself it was duty. She owed it to her people to birth an elf, not a human. Given her role in stopping the Blight, filling her belly with a child was almost counterproductive if she hadn't taken into consideration the fact that she might not live through said Blight. That combined with Zevran's mercurial nature and his predisposition to flight, she decided to take the opportunity as it presented itself.

But she also appreciated Zevran's understanding of flattery. Where Alistair called her beautiful, Zevran did not. The assassin understood that such terms blanketed generalities. Beautiful. Exotic. Perhaps with her almond-shaped eyes that were such a dark blue they almost appeared black, Nema was beautiful to Alistair. Perhaps with her sharp features and honey-colored hair she was exotic to him.

Within the confines of the Alienage there was nothing unique about Nema's face. There, she was so startlingly plain it would have been difficult for her to not fade into the crowd.

Still, his misguided attempts were endearing. He thought she was beautiful and that had to count for something. He always held her like she would break and in return, she only spoke to him of happily ever afters.

"We'll go to Highever," she whispered one night. "Find a tomb that would have suited him and sprinkle flower petals across it."

The light that flickered from a candle made Alistair's skin look golden. "Yeah, we could do that. Duncan would like that."

"Travel far, far away and find some cottage somewhere where no one knows our names," she said. "They wouldn't know who we were or what we've done."

"What we've done?" He laughed softly as he undid the bun in her hair. "You talk like ending the Blight is a wicked thing."

Nema's hair brushed her cheeks as it fell down. She smiled. "You make me wicked."

"Wicked and beautiful." He pulled her to his chest, warm and smooth. "I've never seen you with your hair down, before."

His eyes were heavy-lidded as he gazed at her. It made her muscles tense and her throat seize up. "That's because I always wear it up."

"I like it down," Alistair said. His thumb stroked her lower back. "It frames your face. It makes you look softer."

"When it's down, it hides my ears."

With that said, she should have left the tent. Instead, Nema drank up that pregnant pause and unsure of what to say to force away his obvious discomfort, she used the silence as a segue to awkwardly make love. When she had spent the night with Zevran, he had been patient and forgiving of her lack of abilities. Nema did not grant Alistair that same courtesy.


End file.
